It's flaming June and for me that means an annual visit to the hills of Knoydart. Bounded in the north and south by the fjord-like Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis, the western peninsula of Knoydart is nevertheless firmly attached to the mainland, held forever in the grip of a rugged tract of mountains known as the Rough Bounds.

Kinloch Hourn, which is better served by boat than it is by its switchbacked, single-track road, lies at the head of Loch Hourn, while the head of Loch Nevis has no need of a road at all. Only a mountain bothy and a ruined farmhouse greet you after a four-hour trek along the rough footpaths of Glen Dessarry. In between Kinloch Nevis and Kinloch Hourn steep-sided mountains form a wall of invincibility, most notably the knobbly summit of Sgurr na Ciche, the popular jewel of Knoydart, and a squat, muscle-bound mountain called Ben Aden. If Sgurr na Ciche is the most public symbol of the Rough Bounds of Knoydart, then Ben Aden is its most sacred private icon.

Ben Aden, 887m/2910ft, is, to use the parlance of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, one of the most retiring of all the Corbetts. That means it is remote and difficult to get to. The baggers' route treks round the western extremity of Loch Quoich from the Kinloch Hourn road, climbs the hill and gets you back out in a day, but any other route requires an overnight or two in a tent or bothy, no hardship in an area where lingering is well rewarded.

Treat yourself to a two/three-day backpacking trip and take a long, circuitous route around Ben Aden, exploiting the old deer-stalkers' paths that lace this area, camping out in the company of drumming snipe and warbling curlews. Backpacking, with simple needs carried on your back, is the only practical way to explore the Rough Bounds.

My route took me from Strathan, at the head of Loch Arkaig, over the Bealach Feith a' Chicheanais to Glen Kingie. From there, a wonderful stalkers' path runs up towards the head of the glen before turning back on itself to zig-zag over a high pass between An Eag and Sgurr Beag. In a little Corbett-bashing spree I left my pack on this pass and nipped, unladen, over the Munro of Sgurr Mor to Sgurr an Fhuarain and back again before dropping down into Coire Reidh and Loch Quoich.

Camping at the head of the loch I was in a perfect position to climb Ben Aden next morning by way of Coire na Cruaiche and its rocky east-north-east ridge.

This approach from the north is a dramatic one, much more preferable to the long slog up the south-west face of the hill which seems to be the popular route.

Close to the head of Loch Quoich a slit-like trench holds the dark waters of Lochan nam Breac, and above it Ben Aden hurls down knolls and corries, dark crags and tumbling ridges, a mirror-image of those exaggerated Victorian paintings that epitomised the era of the Celtic Twilight.

It's up through those corries and tumbling crags that the route climbs, easily at first over yellowed deer grass and rocky slabs before the ridge rises in a series of bluffs and craggy steps. The route rises with it, maniacally zig-zagging from one side of the ridge to another in an attempt to avoid the steeper crags, before the ground finally drops away on all sides and the small summit cairn heralds a magnificent viewpoint. Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis naturally draw the eye out to Skye, Rum and Eigg in the west, and almost every peak in the north and west Highlands becomes visible - An Teallach and Ben Wyvis, the Kintail and Affric hills, down to the blue waters of Loch Quoich and the neighbouring hills of Sgurr Mor, Gairich and Sgurr Thuilm.

The rest of the day was more relaxed - a late lunch by Lochan nam Breac, old shielings in the narrow pass through to Glen Carnoch, fields of wood anenomes, the tangy scent of the Carnoch salt flats and another camp, this time by Finiskaig at the head of Loch Nevis where I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of gulls and the sea.

Next day the weather broke, and the 10 miles over the Mam na Cloiche Airde back to Glen Dessarry and Strathan were spent in the overhot huddle of waterproofs. I considered myself fortunate to get at least two good days out of three; that's not bad in these Rough Bounds of Knoydart.